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Bruce - After about 14 years as an engineer, analyst, senior staffer to executives, and manager in the nuclear power business, the most important thing I learned is that to fix something, you have to recognize it is broken and fix the root cause. (And in a nuclear plant, that is required by Federal law.)

What seems to be a dime a dozen is people who don't know the history and the cause of problems, who don't want to do what is needed to fix the problems, and who want to blame someone else (especially the problem identifier) for their problem, and then sit on the porch til someone else fixes the problem.

Packrat - The seventy years is the minimum time my family was in Memphis prior to Bruce VanW's arrival in '93. My father was born in Memphis in the 20's, and his father retired from MLGW and died in 1960 or a bit before. My mother and her mother moved to Mempjhis in the early 40s. I was born in 1956, so I was busy going to school and mowing yards until I started checking groceries rather than saving the world in the 50's, 60's and early 70's. After a year of college in a Chicago suburb, I transferred to then Memphis-State. I left home a few weeks after turning 19, making $3.50 an hour for 20 hours/week. Four years later, supporting myself and paying for college by working in grocery stores, I earned a BS Electrical Engineering and moved away because there were then - as now - few if any decent entry level jobs for new-grad enginneers in the Memphis area, visiting frequently and having my marriage there. I spent years working for the USAF and nuclear utilities, mainly TVA and Entergy. I mentored in Jackson MS schools, did some brief work for Habitat for Humanity, ran a Neighborhood Assoc, and other things, although some of my jobs did not allow for much free time. My wife (grad of Sheffield High, child of blue collar parents as I am) and I moved back to the area in 1994 after the death of our only child and my mother, and her brother here had AIDS, her father terminal cancer, and my father heart trouble and later terminal cancer. All these relatives have since died, and my mother-in-law is in assisted care after a serious stroke and then heart attack, with severe COPD; my wife spends most of a day with her each week, even when working 50-60 hours a week. Since 1994 I spent some time working at a charity supporting St Jude patients and their families - often doing 2 or 3 shifts a week rather than the 1 most volunteers did.
Now, if you don't think I'm a good enough person, or educated or informed enough to speak to issues in Memphis or this area, as opposed to those johnny-come-latelys and PC-lemmings you agree with, fine. But that (and your sanctimonious rudeness) won't change the problems this area faces (and often seems devoted to shooting the messengers rather than fixing the problems, a la Calapari and Herenton) one bit.
And at least I am man enough to put my name on what I say.

Bruce - Sorry we don't think and act "properly" - but keep your day job, comedy does not seem to be your forte... (but what does a simple former electrical and nuclear engineer know...)
Driving home from Midtown last Saturday through neighborhoods that I remember as clean, bustling and vibrant (ones that you have never seen that way), and then hearing the problem is the messenger not the message, doesn't strike me as very funny. Being unemployed for 5 months probably doesn't help - hah, hah.

Bruce - quoting John "Get Your Snake Oil Here" Calapari and adopting his tactics (not that the specific one you mention isn't routinely used in The Flyer anyway) speaks for itself...
Maybe Forbes, like many of us who had roots in Memphis for 70 years or more before you schlepped into town, simply doesn't accept the corruption and waste in government, or the robbery, rape and murder on the streets, with the jaded unconcern you and others (especially in the media) do.

Jeff and MickeyWhite make good points:
1) - Any chain email should be checked on snopes or another similar place at the least - or at least marked as unverified! (I corrected a chain about Ben Stein's remarks that - while sounding good - had been changed from his actual speech; the guy who sent it was LIVID I sent a correction to 'reply all' even though his forward was partially false.)
2) - I think MickeyWhite is correct - people who are uneducated are generally not going to use the Internet, much less use it to become educated. What is the typical high school drop-out or a functional illiterate going to research and learn? You have to crawl before walking...